Father-Son Relationships in Neil Jordan's Fiction

Estudios Irlandeses , Number 3, 2008, pp. 101-112 __________________________________________________________________________________________ AEDEI Fathers in a Coma: Father-Son Relationships in Neil Jordan’s Fiction Samuele Grassi University of Florence, Italy Copyright (c) 2008 by Samuele Grassi. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access. Abstract. This paper will analyze father-son relationships in some of Neil Jordan’s novels and short stories. His writing often deals with this theme, as well as with the gap between old and young generations. His works are often built around the contrast between tradition and modernity, such as de Valera’s idealised concept of Nation and contemporary, ‘global’ Ireland. Thus following a consistent trend in contemporary Irish literature, Jordan develops new narratives of the Nation. What do fathers do? What do sons do? How do fathers respond to their sons’ actions and behaviours, and vice versa? These questions will be addressed and, possibly, be answered. In Neil Jordan’s work, father-son struggles have their counterpart in the process of the revision of ideologies and norms of tradition (patriarchy and the Catholic Church). At the same time, they are accompanied by a strong feeling of belonging to Ireland as a Nation. Key Words. Father, son, Nation, de Valera, ghost, identity, roles. Resumen. El artículo analizará las relaciones padre-hijo en algunas novelas y relatos de Neil Jordan. Su obra a menudo trata este tema, así como la distancia entre generaciones. Sus obras están construídas a menudo en torno al contraste entre tradición y modernidad, el concepto idealizado de la Nación propagado por de Valera y la Irlanda ‘global’ del presente. En sintonía con una arraigada tendencia de la literature irlandesa contemporánea, Jordan crea nuevas narrativas de la Nación. ¿Qué hacen los padres? ¿Qué hacen los hijos? ¿Cómo responden los padres a las acciones y comportamientos de sus hijos, y viceversa? Tales preguntas serán formuladas, y posiblemente respuestas. En la obra de Neil Jordan, las luchas padre-hijo tienen su contrapunto en el proceso de revisión d ideologías y normas tradicionales (patriarcado e Iglesia Católica). Al mismo tiempo, van acompañadas por un fuerte sentimiento de pertenencia a Irlanda como Nación. Palabras clave. Padre, hijo, Nación, de Valera, fanstasma, identidad, roles. During a conference in Munich in 1988 on the Irish contemporary authors, haunted by de Irish cultural panorama, Richard Kearney Valera’s ghost, have developed new narratives asserted that: “Yes, we have an identity crisis of the Nation in order both to re-gain in the South. But at least we are trying to work possession of the concept of Irishness and of it out in our literature” (Kearney 1988b: 213). their own relationship with Ireland’s colonial Kearney also pointed out that Ireland’s past and national history. The revision of “transitional crisis” must be viewed as a traditional tropes and the shaping of alternative consequence of the country’s move to representations of individual and national globalisation, and this implied a reassessment identities lead to the deconstruction of of its national identity (Kearney 1988a: 84). stereotypes and ‘typically Irish’ re-workings of subjects and narrations silenced so far. It is in ____________________________________ ISSN 1699-311X 102 these borderline areas where everything new – 1990). Neil Jordan’s work moves freely within new forms of representation, new identities – is these ambiguous spaces, for it tends towards defined according to its obsessive relation with the indefinableness of all representations, in a the past that Neil Jordan’s work has its origins. never-ending process of revision of the A novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and possibilities of fiction. Kevin Rockett has director, Neil Jordan is perhaps the leading appropriately defined certain tendencies in exponent of what Gerry Smyth has defined as Jordan’s fiction as a “trope of mutability”, that the “Pan Celtic Revival” in Irish culture over is to say the last three decades (Smyth 1997: 175). (…) notions around appearance, reality and At a superficial level, Jordan’s techniques ‘unreality’, or the irrational; the psycho-sexual are similar to Flann O’Brien, Aidan Higgins dynamics of the family, but most especially around and John Banville’s postmodern the young male and the oedipal triangulation of deconstruction of narrative language, desire; the interrelationship of private and public; something which Kearney has referred to as a the (im)possibility of transformation and the “counter-tradition” in Irish contemporary blurring of categories other than in negative terms; literature (see Kearney 1988c). These authors an enjoyment of the sensual, of fantasy and the impossible made possible (E and K Rockett 2003: fluctuate in a mid-position between Modernism 1). and revivalism, a position which Kearney has called “mediational Modernism … a collage of Father-son relationships are pivotal to the modern and traditional motifs, … It may be narrative development in many of Neil termed post-modern to the extent that it Jordan’s texts (that is, the novels, especially borrows freely from the idioms of both The Past, The Dream of a Beast and Sunrise modernity and tradition, one moment with Sea Monster, and some of the short stories endorsing a deconstruction of tradition, another in Night in Tunisia). It may be seen how the reinventing and rewriting the stories of the past illuminating way in which father-son struggles transmitted by cultural memory” (Kearney are treated is linked to a common trend in Irish 1988c: 14). Neil Jordan’s works, for instance, cultural debate – which had its peak in the very often deal with the theme of father and 1990s – in which tradition is neither fully son relationships set in the broader, rejected, nor yet considered thoroughly metaphorical context of an attempt to leave reliable. In a time when Irish culture has been behind the tradition established by Irish undergoing a radical re-structuring of its ‘literary fathers’. His revision of traditional foundations, Jordan’s work shows an urge for motifs and attitudes is motivated by the revision and invention of alternative deconstruction of the norms and stereotypes of representations of the narratives of the Nation. both patriarchy and the Catholic Church, which This is relevant for the study of contemporary are currently being replaced by new identities Irish culture since his works belong to a that purport to cross boundaries as a means to genuinely post-modern (Irish) counter-tradition undermine all stereotypes (of gender, of race, which focuses on transitional spaces, shifting and of political ideals). A recurring theme in deliberately across the United States and Jordan’s fiction is also the rewriting of Irish Europe, Ireland and England. myths of the Nation and an exploration of how Neil Jordan’s recent film production has these myths impinge upon people’s lives and over-shadowed his career as a writer and has behaviour. perhaps distanced his interest in father-son and Some recent studies on Irish literature have other traditional motifs and themes, as well as drawn a comparison between Neil Jordan’s to issues of the Nation, which characterise his point of view and Homi Bhabha’s notion of most accomplished works to date. However, third space (see Kearney, Smyth and Hopper). below this choice there may lie his desire to For Bhabha, hybridity does not account for the leave the haunting ghost of the Nation’s past possibility “to trace two original moments behind once and for all; it is also possible that from which a third one emerges, [but] (…) is Rockett’s definition of ‘trope of mutability’ the ‘third space’ which enables other positions could again provide an explanation, for it gives to emerge. This third space displaces the an eloquent judgment on Jordan’s whole histories that constitute it, and sets up new production. The analysis of a series of works in structures of authority, new political initiatives, which the father-son struggles reach their which are inadequately understood through climax will demonstrate how such an ‘Irish’ received wisdom” (Bhabha in Rutherford issue is still at the core of contemporary Irish 103 literature. In spite of Ireland’s move to The ordinariness of the characters is globalisation and its recent economic-social juxtaposed with references to the fathers of the developments, Jordan and most of his Nation and the characters’ relationship with contemporaries share the same urge to mould their own past. Jordan’s writing habitually ever-changing ideas of the Nation into their draws on events and personae from the history fiction, an urge which draws consistently on of Ireland. Eamon de Valera, for instance (in their revaluation of not only Ireland’s, but also the novel, a friend of Una’s), is portrayed as of their own past. the national father par excellence. Here, he A national myth of origins: The Past becomes “the gaunt schoolmaster … his unlikely profile on the history of this place as In his analysis of the epistemological crisis in surely as South American dictators stick theirs post-modern Irish fiction, Neil Murphy has on coins and postage stamps” (50) (this is pointed out that, as much as Banville and probably an intrusion by the writer himself, Higgins, Neil Jordan responds to the lesson who questioned de Valera’s presumed right to taught by Modernism, bringing his readers be the father of his Nation/Ireland in his 1996 towards fictional worlds where human film, Michael Collins). Rene’s father is always knowledge and experience are questioned evoked in the novel by his Free State Uniform. (Murphy 2004: 3-4). Neil Jordan’s first novel, 1 Having been killed during the Booterstown The Past (1980) investigates the search for Seafront – where the Free State’s Minister of origins through a “richly metaphorical Justice, Kevin O’Higgins, was murdered by meditation on the interwoven concepts of IRA militants avenging some fellow nation and narration in Ireland” (Hopper 2001: republicans –, his death reminds readers of the 180).

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